But what many, especially people of my generation don’t know about is another failed regime change project, this time against Jamal Abdul Nasser, the president of Egypt.

The plan was: an attack against Egyptian forces in the Sinai by Israel first, followed by an attack by British and French forces against mainland Egypt. A British intelligence source had estimated that such an attack would lead to a popular uprising in Egypt against Nasser who many people wanted overthrown. Much like Iraq, such an estimate relied on dubious intelligence sources.

This great documentary by the BBC charts the war, especially the serious political and intelligence miscalculations by the British and the French governments.

The only party who managed to leverage something out of that disastrous war was the state of Israel, which at the time of the war was only eight years old. It is believed that for its help to the French during that war, Paris agreed to help Israel develop its nuclear weapons capability.

This documentary also proves that contrary to Western propaganda, Nasser was not a Communist.